The integrity of certain processes managed or controlled by means of information technology systems are of great concern to one or more associations, societies, governments, or polities. For example, compliance with laws or regulations governing the control of elections, nuclear materials handling and other vital activities can be better assured by enabling visibility into the functioning of an information technology system that executes the relevant vital activity.
As one example, the public's sense of the legitimacy of a democratically elected government is significantly related to the electorate's confidence in the integrity of the voting and vote tabulation processes. The application of automated vote tabulating systems can raise questions in the public mind concerning the security of the vote tabulation process from defective tabulation systems, fraudulent activities by election officials and data corruption by third party software hackers. The Prior Art attempts to address these concerns by offering paper trails of each ballot cast and/or assurances and demonstrations of the robustness of the electronic voting system. Yet the public is primarily concerned with how the automated vote tabulation systems actually function during the certified voting process. The Prior Art fails to provide members of the public, press, or electorate a means or method to monitor the actual computational operation of an automated tabulating system during a reading of ballots and a derivative tabulation of votes in an electoral activity.
The public and the electorate are denied access to the real-time operation of Prior Art electronic vote tabulators during a certified vote counting period. Yet certain Prior Art vote automated tabulators contain bi-directional modems that are configured to communicate with via a telephone system, such as a land-line system, a cable based telephone system and/or a telephone system comprising wireless telephony devices. In addition, certain electronic vote tabulators of the Prior Art are vulnerable not only to machine failures, but may also be a target of unauthorized and illegal manipulation attempts by third party software hackers. The public has no generally available way to resolve a suspicion of inaccurate vote tabulation due to either tabulation system malfunction or intentional vote fraud. The common effects of widespread doubt of the integrity of an election process include increased instability of the populace, the exacerbation of social tensions and loss of confidence in the capital markets. The value of providing methods and systems that provide commonly available verification of vote tabulations systems may include immediate economic advantages to the polity and society affected by an election.
It is, therefore, a long-felt need to provide a method to increase the transparency of the operation of an information technology system that at least partially determines the governance and/or execution of a socially significant activity, such as the operation of a nuclear reactor or the implementation of an automated vote tabulation system during an election process.